Plastic facing element

ABSTRACT

A plastic facing element which may be used on drawers, cabinet doors or the like and will serve to give the drawers, etc. the appearance of having carved wooden fronts. The facing element has a polygonal outline which is the same shape as the outline of the drawer or whatever. A flange projects rearwardly from the element and is designed to fit over the wooden or composition front of the door or drawer and will be nailed, screwed, etc. to firmly attach it to the same. The flange tapers from its thickest at the front of the drawer to its narrowest at its rearmost extension.

United States Patent [191 Krauth PLASTIC FACING ELEMENT [75] Inventor: Glen W. Krauth, Swainsboro, Calif.

[73] Assignee: Allied Polymer Corporation,

Swainsboro, Ga.

[22] Filed: Nov. 15, 1971 [21] Appl. No.: 198,765

[ Mar. 19, 1974 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 1.467.369 H1967 France 220/42 B 1.058.598 3/1954 France 220/42 A Primary Examiner-John E. Murtagh Assistant Examiner-I-I. E. Raduazo Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Jerome R. Cox; Sidney W.

Millard [5 7] ABSTRACT A plastic facing element which may be used on drawers, cabinet doors or the like and will serve to give the drawers, etc. the appearance of having carved wooden fronts. The facing element has a polygonal outline which is the same shape as the outline of the drawer or whatever. A flange projects rearwardly from the element and is designed to fit over the wooden or composition front of the door or drawer and will be nailed, screwed, etc. to firmly attach it to the same. The flange tapers from its thickest at the front of the drawer to its narrowest at its rearmost extension.

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PLASTIC FACING ELEMENT BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Over the years one problem encountered by furniture manufacturers is providing a substantially uniform, decorative and inexpensive front facing on drawers, cabinet doors, picture frames and the like. In recent years the industry has begun to use molded plastic facings to simulate the decorative carved outline desired.

There is no particular problem with getting the desired design or emblem on the front surface of the molded facing. The problem which exists is the location of the parting line between the cavity portion of the mold and the core portion of the mold. The two portions of the mold are joined and separated by movement in an axial direction. Thus, the sides of the molded element must have slopes which converge toward the nearest mold facing. Unless this fact exists the molded element cannot physically separate from the core or the cavity. For convenience in prior devices and molded facings, the parting line has been formed on the side of the molded element approximately equidistant between the front and rear of the side. Whether the parting line is exactly at the midpoint between the front and rear of the facing or some other intermediate point is immaterial. What is significant is the two, oppositely sloped surfaces. For convenience it will be referred to as a midpoint parting line. Thus, the greatest elevation of the element around its periphery is the midpoint parting line.

This inherent fact is undesirable both from its aesthetics as well as its practical application. Existing wooden drawers and cabinet doors are not finished in this manner, such items have a reverse draft or slope for the full width of the side of the drawer or door. That is, the sides define slopes which converge toward the rear of the drawer. It will be understood that, for the most part, reference is to rectangular doors and drawers.

Because of the midpoint parting line employed by the molded prior art devices, they do not appear physically thesame as their wooden counterparts. Thus, the discriminating purchaser of furniture may not feel he is getting good quality furniture. The fact is, he may be right.

The practical problem with the prior art molded facing, of course, is the resulting gap between the edge of the drawer and the edges of the hole in its supporting dresser. With wooden facings the smallest gap is usually at the forward face of the drawer. However, with the midpoint parting line used in prior plastic facings the narrowest gap is the midpoint parting line along the side of the facing thus, unfortunately, providing a wider gap at the front of the drawer than is desirable. Obviously, this is unsightly to the purchaser and user of the same.

Another aspect of this practical problem is the resulting gap which is along the sides of the cabinet door. With the wooden doors the slope of the side which swings in and out of position in opening and closing the door inclines to the rear and thus the gap at the very front on the latch side of the door can be very small because it does not have to pass within the door jam. However, with the existing molded fronts of cabinet doors, the midpoint parting line is the highest point on the door and it must pass within the door jam. For this reason the gap on the latch side of the door opposite from the hinges will be large relative to equivalent wooden doors.

The very fact of the midpoint parting line creates other problems which are not easily solved by the existing molds. Because the parting line is in a particular plane through the mold, the cavity and core portions must be exactly matched about their periphery to prevent misalignment of the parting line. Obviously, misalignments occur all the time and such results in a shoulder which is unsightly as well as detrimental to proper assembly of the facing, for the same reason that the parting line itself is detrimental in the particular location where it exists. What is done in practice, subsequent to the molding, is a manual planning or shearing action which removes the flash inherent at the existing parting line and also removes at least some of the shoulder which results from the misalignment.

With more expensive furniture it is sometimes desirable to have wood grain molded in the side edges of the molded facing to give a more complete appearance of wood grain, particularly in relation to simulated antique furniture. With the existing center-located parting line this is difficult, if not impossible because there is no radially inward give in the molded part. Unless the molded part deflects inwardly and allows the ridges in the mold to move out of the groove formed in the sidewall of the molded part, said ridges will cut a trough through the solidified plastic. One way to accomplish the desired result on the front half of the side of existing 1 molded parts is, separate the core first and then knock the part out of the cavity portion. However, the resulting blemishes from the knock out pins would mar the decorative front face and for this reason the solution is impractical.

The obvious need in the art is to provide a part which part has a parting line at the front facing of the drawer and which will permit wood grain to be molded into the side edges of the facing member. This invention provides such a part.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The first step to the solution to the problems existing in the art was to design the type of facing needed.

The decorative imprint of the front facing of the part is optional and any number of particular designs or shapes could be employed. The structure of the molded facing which is significant and the most important is the rearwardly extending flange projecting from the rear face of the molded facing. The need was two-fold. The inside surfaces of the flanges around the periphery of the part must be outwardly flaring for the full width of the flange to allow the core portion of the mold to be withdrawn from the facing element without scarring or deforming the same. The next need is to have a reverse draft for the full outer width of the rearwardly extending flange. A third, to have the rearwardly extending flange of varying heights around the sides of the flange to allow for slightly deformed or mis-shapen drawers.

It will be understood that in woodworking, the craftmanship employed is not as rigidly tied to manufacturing tolerances as are metal workers. While machinists customarily machine to tolerances of plus or minus 0.0003 inches, a carpenter will saw lumber to plus or minus'l/8 inches. For this reason, furniture factories need to compensate for lumber cuts falling on either extreme of the allowable tolerance. They expect to install drawers that are a little too wide or a little too narrow, the facing gives them a chance to partially cover the variance.

Designing the mold to provide these three structural features required a new innovation; namely, the parting line should not be at the midpoint of the flange or if it was at the midpoint of the flange, it had to be planed off so as to provide a straight line reverse draft appear ance before the facing could be installed on the drawer front. It will be appreciated that the molded part described in this invention can be used for a drawer facing, cabinet door facing, picture frame, etc. However. for convenience, hereinafter the part formed will be referred to as a drawer facing, where used the phrase is intended to encompass all of the aforementioned and similar structures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a drawer with the novel drawer facing of this invention attached to its front;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the facing element itself;

FIG. 3 is an elevational view taken along line 33 of FIG. 2; and

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along line 4--4 of FIG. 2.

FIG. 1 illustrates a drawer having a molded plastic facing 12 attached to its front. Said facing incorporates the novel features of this invention. It includes a decorative front face 14 and a rear face 16.

It will be noted in FIGS. 3 and 4 that two sides of the facing have wider flanges 18 and 20 than do the other sides 22 and 24.. This arrangement allows certain adjustments for misalignments to be made between the drawer front and the molded facing. As can be observed in FIG. 1, the facing 12 can be placed over the drawer front whereby the flange 20 covers the top of the wooden drawer front and tapers downwardly toward the rear of the drawer. The left hand side 18 fits over and along the outer edge of the drawer front and also masks the wood on that side. The molded plastic at corner 26 will thus cover the wood from of the drawer from direct view of a user and will tightly fit in place on that corner. The lower right hand corner28 is formed by the merger of shorter flanges than on the sides 18 and 20. In this instance the flanges 22 and 24 directly abut the wooden drawer front. The two shorter flanges 22 and 24 are designed to allow the facing element 12 to accomodate drawers of slightly varying size. For example, should the right side edge of the drawer be longer than the lower flange 22 and the flange 24 be of the same width as flange 20, the drawer front would not fit into the recess in the rear of the facing formed by the flanges. In such a case, the rear extension of the flange 24 would simply sit against the drawer front without slipping beneath the bottom and flange 20 could not slip over the top. However, with the two shorter flanges 22 and 24, the facing 12 can slip into place. Additionally, one observing the drawer from its front would never notice that this was the case, and as a consequence, the particular design illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4 is adapted to accommodate slightly missized or misaligned drawers while still presenting a pleasant appearance to the eye of the purchaser or potential customer.

It should be stated that the drawer facing illustrated in FIG. 1 could be one of two facings to fit on two sideby-side drawers at the top of a chest of drawers and that all drawers beneath that would have two of the types of facings shown in FIG. 1, each with two wide and two narrow flanges. Obviously, the facing shown in FIG. 1 would be for the left hand drawer and a mirror image set of flanges would be usable for the right hand drawer. The two mirror image sets of flanges and facings could then be used together to fit the wider lower drawers. Equally obvious to those having ordinary skill in the art is the fact that any one of the. flanges, or any combination thereof, could be shortened or lengthened as desired. The molding apparatus and the appropriate steps for accomplishing this will be explained subsequently.

For convenience, the conventional nailing pads" used in all similar drawer facings have not been illustrated in the drawings. However, the placement and elevation of the same are relatively arbitrary and conventional. For this reason, no particular discussion appears necessary.

For convenience, two blocks 30 and 32 are illustrated in FIG. 4 to simulate knock-out pins and the placement of the same. Obviously, otherplacements for knock-out pins are necessary and desirable in certain instances. However, for convenience, no further knock-out pins have been illustrated in the drawings as this particular invention is not directed to the placement nor the shape of knock-out pins. Any operable combination would be satisfactory.

As will be observed in FIG. 7, the converging angle of the outer surface 34 of the flange 34 is approximately 3. The angle could be as small as 1 but it is merely an-illustrative angle which has been found convenient. It is extremely difficult to maintain exact angle specifications in this type of structure which has the shrinkage problems inherent in thermo-plastics used in this type of molding. An example of a type of plastic used is high impact polystyrene but certainly others could be used. What is important is not the specific angle or material but the fact that the outer surface 34 of the flange 34 is sloped toward the rear for the full width of the flange. This allows the outer surface of the flange to be separated from its mating surface on the adjacent ring. and the varying flange widths will compensate for the possibility of minimum shrinkage (as well as the varying wooden length deviations as set out previously).

Inspection of FIGS. 7 and 8 will show the structural distinction between the rearwardly extending flange 34 of the instant invention and the rearwardly extending flange 38 on a conventional drawer facing. As can be seen in the prior art, the

It is to be understood that the above described embodiment of my invention is for the purpose of illustration only- I claim:

1. In combination,

1. a part of a wooden article of furniture designed to fit into an opening in said article of furniture, said part being movable relative to said opening; and

2. a facing formed of molded injected plastic having a. a polygonal outline,

b. a forward face, at least the central portion of which is formed with a decorative impegforate surface,

c. a rearward face, and

d. a plurality of flanges each projecting rearwardly from the rear face and tapering toward the rear from its maximum thickness at said rear face to its minimum thickness at points most remote from said rear face, at least one of said flanges overlapping and encasingone side of the part of the article of furniture, and at least one of said flanges abutting against part of the front of the article of furniture but not overlapping said part of the article, and the facing being of such shape and dimension that it enters into and fills the opening in the article of furniture. 2. A combination according to claim 1, wherein the outer surface of said overlapping flange is planar and slopes inwardly for its full length, and

ers.

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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Inventor(s) Glen h It is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

In The Drawings:

Sheets 2, 3 and A of the drawings having Figures 5-12 should be canceled.

Column 2-, linesl6 and 17, "is a manual planning or shearing action" should read is a manual planing or shearing action Column 2, lines 66-67, "tolerances of plus or minus 0.0005 inches" should read tolerances of plus or minus 0.005 inches Column 5, after line 28, the heading PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS should be inserted; Column line 34, "5h" both occurrences should be deleted.

Column A, lines i land +5, "5h" should be deleted.

Column A, lines +8-56, "and the varying flange widths will compensate for the possibility of minimum shrinkage (as Well as the varying wooden length deviations as set out previously).

Inspection of Figs. 7 and 8 show the structural distinction between the rearwardly extending flange 5A of the instant invention and the rearwardly extending flange 58 on a conventional drawer facing. As can be seen in the prior art, the" should be deleted.

FORM Po-105o (10-69) uscoMM'oc 6037643 I ".5 GOVERNNENT PRINTIHG OFFICE:

Patent No.

Inventor(s) UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Fag? CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION BJQZQOA Dated March 19, 197A Glen W. Krauth It is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

Claim. 1 should appear as shown below:

In combination P-igred and a part of a wooden article of furniture designed to fit into an oneninp in. said article of furniture, said part being movable relative to said onening; and

a facing of molded injected plastic having a a polygonal outline,

ba forward face,- at least the central portion of which is formed with a decorative imnerforate surface;

a rearward face, and

plurality of flanges each projecting rearward] v from the rear face and tapering toward. the rear from maximum thickness at said. rear face to its minimwn thickness at noints most remote from said rear face, at least one of said. langes overlapping and. encasing one side of the part of the article of furniture, and at least one of said flanges abutting against part of the front of the article of furniture but not overlapping said part of the article, and the facing being: of such Shane and dimension that it enters into and fills the opening in the article of furniture.

sealed this 1st day of April 1975.

c MARSHALL 0mm RUTH C MASON Attes inv fnficer F ORM PO-1050 (10-69) uscoMM-oc scan-ps9 U.S GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICEi 8 s9. 

1. In combination,
 1. a part of a wooden article of furniture designed to fit into an opening in said article of furniture, said part being movable relative to said opening; and
 2. a facing formed of molded injected plastic having a. a polygonal outline, b. a forward face, at least the central portion of which is formed with a decorative imperforate surface, c. a rearward face, and d. a plurality of flanges each projecting rearwardly from the rear face and tapering toward the rear from its maximum thickness at said rear face to its minimum thickness at points most remote from said rear face, at least one of said flanges overlapping and encasing one side of the part of the article of furniture, and at least one of said flanges abutting against part of the front of the article of furniture but not overlapping said part of the article, and the facing being of such shape and dimension that it enters into and fills the opening in the article of furniture.
 2. a facing formed of molded injected plastic having a. a polygonal outline, b. a forward face, at least the central portion of which is formed with a decorative imperforate surface, c. a rearward face, and d. a plurality of flanges each projecting rearwardly from the rear face and tapering toward the rear from its maximum thickness at said rear face to its minimum thickness at points most remote from said rear face, at least one of said flanges overlapping and encasing one side of the part of the article of furniture, and at least one of said flanges abutting against part of the front of the article of furniture but not overlapping said part of the article, and the facing being of such shape and dimension that it enters into and fills the opening in the article of furniture.
 2. A combination according to claim 1, wherein the outer surface of said overlapping flange is planar and slopes inwardly for its full length, and wherein the inner surface of said overlapping flange is also planar and slopes outwardly for its full length.
 3. A combination according to claim 1, wherein the article of furniture is a chest of drawers and the part of the article of furniture designed to fit in the opening, is a drawer of said chest of drawers. 